Very Extra Old Fitzgerald 1959 10 Year Old Boy.1969 Glass Pack

Description

S.C. Hebst created the Old Fitzgerald brand in 1870, originally registered as “Jno. E. Fitzgerald.” Hebst was a rectifier by trade (making “whiskey” by coloring and flavoring grain neutral alcohol), but he also had a fondness for acquiring high quality barrels of pot still bourbon and rye, which he bottled under the name Jno. E. Fitzgerald. When the Bottled in Bond Act of 1897 was passed, rectified whiskey fell out of favor, and Hebst ventured into the distilling business, purchasing an Old Judge distillery named after his best-selling flagship brand. However, Old Judge could not survive Prohibition, and Hebst sold the Old Fitzgerald brand to a longtime customer, a certain Julian ‘Pappy’ Van Winkle, who was sourcing label for his new Stitzel-Weller enterprise, for just $10,000. Van Winkle had a near-religious devotion in the significance of quality above all else in the bourbon he made, and under his direction, Old Fitzgerald became, and continues to be, one of the most sought-after and respected brands in American whiskey. United Distillers later shut down Stitzel-Weller, and their successor, Diageo, sold the Old Fitzgerald brand to current owners, Heaven Hill.

This is the 10 year old Very Xtra Old Fitzgerald, which was distilled in 1959 at Stitzel-Weller and released in 1969. Stitzel-Weller’s Van Winkle era bottlings are extremely sought after, making the “A Collector’s Item” text that frequently featured on the shoulder label an especially shrewd piece of foresight.

The Stitzel-Weller firm was officially founded in 1933, following the abolition of National Prohibition in the United States. It was formed by the combination of the A. Ph. Stitzel distillery with its largest customer, W.L. Weller & Sons. The Stitzel-Weller distillery opened on Kentucky Derby day in 1935 and rapidly gained a reputation for producing high-quality wheated bourbon under the labels Old Weller, Old Fitzgerald, and Cabin Still. Alex T. Farnsley, Arthur Philip Stitzel, and Julian Van Winkle were the original owners. The former died in 1941 and 1947, leaving the Van Winkle family as the only heirs to the firm. ‘Pappy’ died in 1965, a year after handing over the reins to his son, Julian II, who ran it until 1972, when the board of directors compelled him to sell it to the Norton-Simon subsidiary, Somerset Imports. When they were purchased by DCL, the American arm of Scottish distillers, the second incarnation invested substantially in bourbon. So much so that their freshly renovated Bernheim distillery had so much capacity that Stitzel-Weller was made obsolete. It was decommissioned in 1992. It is still owned by Diageo, however it has never reopened and now houses the tourist experience for their Bulleit brand.